Roses Have Thorns
by Solitaryrose
Summary: This is a sad look in Touga's POV about Utena and how he was never able to "snare" her and become her prince... basically, his poignant thoughts.


Roses Have Thorns  
  
"Roses are a beautiful things", a woman once told me. "But you must be careful in touching them. They have thorns." When I heard those words of wisdom, I paid them no heed. I only thought that she was referring to plants. Little did I know what value was held in her advice.  
  
I've never truly loved anybody or anything, apart from immediate family. A person like me who spends life as a debonair is not be able to love for real. Everyone slips like silk ribbons through my slender fingers. Everyone and everything.  
  
Sure, I remember some of it, only if it's pleasing. That's next to none, though.  
  
I have a fine memory, though. But it's not fit for remembering everything.  
  
Normally when I try to recall some memory, I must look deep. However, when I think of her... it's immediate. Yes, her. The princess... not her bride, the princess. The princess with the soft, silken rose hair that is always in my view. And I was such a fool to have let her slip by me twice. I fought with her more than once, the final duel with the poignant idea that if I became her prince, she would love me and I would have liberated her from her sad destiny as a pawn for the Ends of the World. But it... didn't... work.  
  
She hated me.  
  
She had reason to.  
  
Sometimes even I can't abide myself. At night, I ask, "Why am I like this? Can't I be a good man?" So called "improving myself" fails. There is no way I can change. True, I can free myself of this world and join her. Then what would everyone say? What a surprise it would be, if the news came out: Kiryuu Touga, suicide. Yeah, right. I know I can't do it. Am I a coward, conscience? Am I? Am I so much a fool?  
  
Utena... are you watching over me, from that other world? It would please me greatly if you were my guardian angel. Then I could feel your dignified azure eyes watching over me day by day. What am I ranting about? It isn't ever going to happen. Why do I bother to hope, to wish? I have been forsaken. Left on my own. Without her.  
  
Utena,  
  
I've never told you this, have I? Or maybe I just don't remember. But hear me out... my rose. Utena... I love you.  
  
You were too absorbed in your bride, in that... prince of yours. You couldn't see the one behind you. You couldn't see your true prince, the one destined to be yours.   
  
"You call yourself a prince, yet you don't even know about it?" Yes, conscience, I said those words to her from my own mouth the second time we dueled. She tried to be a prince, but I knew she could never be. She was always the princess. The beautiful, doomed princess.  
  
There was nobody who could free Himemiya, so it was said. Oddly, though, the princess did. She became a prince and a princess. What a surprise it was to all of us in the Seitokai!  
  
I should've been happy for her, I really should've. Yet, there was no possible way for me to be. After all, I lost the only one besides my family that I have ever genuinely loved from the bottom of my heart. In addition to that was the fact that she did not need me as a prince. She was an independent and a dependent. A prince and a princess. It sickens me. How can she be so great, so sublime, so loving? When I am not?  
  
Utena... we have all loved you, in different ways, although I'm the only one who has felt affection for you in such a way. You acknowledged all of them, but not me. Is there something you have against me?   
  
When I tried to snare you in my affections, you slipped out more easily than I would have dreamed. It worked once, though. However, you got out again. I regret doing such a thing. I destroyed your confidence and trust in me unknowingly.   
  
Conscience, am I evil for what I have done?  
  
I stand on the dueling arena, looking up at the empty sky where the castle once stood. Where did it go? Where did the eternities of our youth go? Wherever did it all go?  
  
Utena, you are a rose. My rose.  
  
However beautiful you are, you have thorns.  
  
Just like roses, my dear.  
  
Note: I hope it's sad and moving, 'cause it's meant to be, heh. This was written on an impulse, so it's not as good as I would've hoped it to be. Oh well, that's alright, because it isn't SO bad, I guess... reviews would be greatly appreciated. I love feedback!  



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